Posts in Category: iPhone

The number of clinicians who use smartphones and other mobile devices on the job is rising rapidly, and so is the number of facilities that have created mobile device management strategies to cope. "Organizations with a documented mobility strategy have nearly doubled, and in-house use of pagers has increased slightly during the past two years," according to Health Data Management.

Almost 90 percent of physicians surveyed reported using smartphones, while about half of nurses and other staff members use them. In response, more than 60 percent of hospitals surveyed have a documented mobile device strategy. (The survey, by mobile messaging service vendor Spok, included responses from about 550 hospitals.)
The leading mobile devices used in hospitals are:

Smartphones (78 percent)

In-house pagers (71 percent)

Wi-Fi phones (69 percent)

Wide-area pagers (57 percent)

Tablets (52 percent)

Security and privacy, of course, are huge concerns for those setting mobile device policy, leading some organizations to forbid clinicians to use personal devices for work-related communication. About 80 percent of surveyed hospitals with such policies cited fear of data breaches as the reason behind their rules.

Click here to download the survey.What's the mobile device policy at your organization? Share your thoughts with the LUMEDX community by commenting below.

New research shows that patients in need of a hospital transfer were treated 27 minutes faster when their medical teams used a smartphone app-based social network system (SNS) to set up the transfer, compared to medical teams who didn’t use the smartphone technology.

The research, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, monitored the time that patients with ST-elevated myocardial infarction (STEMI) suffered from ischemia (reduction in blood supply) while they waited to have a procedure opening their blocked arteries. On nights and weekends, the treatment time reduction was even greater than during the regular work week.

One of the study’s senior researchers, Jin Joo Park, M.D., pointed out that there is a higher risk of death for patients who get to a hospital during off hours—a worldwide trend.

“Transferred STEMI patients rarely achieve timely reperfusion due to delays in the transfer process, especially when transferred during off-hours,” Park told Dicardiology.com. “The use of a smartphone SNS (Social Network System) can help to achieve timely reperfusion for transferred STEMI patients with rapid, seamless communication among healthcare providers.”

Over a period of 18 months, the study enrolled 114 STEMI patients who were transferred to Seoul National University Bundang Hospital. The transfers for 50 of the patients were completed using the SNS app, while the remaining patient transfers used a non-smartphone-based STEMI hotline. The transit times for both groups of patients were similar.

The Food and Drug Administration has issued draft guidelines that outline how medical device manufacturers can prevent cybersecurity threats. In addition to incorporating controls in device designs, makers must also consider ongoing improvements because risks could occur over the devices’ lifecycles.

“The sickness, hospital-centric model of healthcare, which has been in place in this country since the mid-1960s, is giving way to an ‘anywhere care’ model that centers on population health management,” according to Executive Insight, which lays out four leadership imperatives to improve population health management.

Better coordination between hospitals and post-acute care facilities could decrease the number of patient readmissions to hospitals, and could also reduce mortality rates. A new study by researchers from the University of Colorado School of Medicine identified specific risk factors that led to hospital readmissions. Almost 50 percent of those readmissions happened within two weeks of patients’ being released from hospitals.

Hospitals are making changes in certain departments and service lines with the needs of older patients in mind. From the emergency department to the OR, healthcare organizations are looking at new ways to treat the aging population.

This week, the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association announced the release of a new mobile and web-based app for healthcare professionals and patients to use in determining the risk of developing atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). The app, the ASCVD Risk Estimator (available for free on iTunes and Google Play), uses patient data to estimate a patient’s 10-year and lifetime risk of heart attack and ischemic stroke. It also helps healthcare professionals to see whether statin therapy is appropriate for the patient.

The tool works by selecting the following patient data and calculating heart disease and stroke risk:

Age

Sex

Race

Total cholesterol

High-density lipoprotein cholesterol

Systolic blood pressure

Blood pressure-lowering medication use

Diabetes status

Smoking status

The ACC states that it hopes the tool will “help health professionals and patients work together.”

As social health applications and resources become more prevalent, what do you see being useful for cardiologists and heart failure patients?

Government Health IT reports on the changing climate when it comes to cloud computing in healthcare, as more and more care providers adopt innovative technologies that allow for secure, web-based data access.

The big news in the tech world this week is the unveiling of the new iPhone5S. According to Healthcare IT News, the new version also has a M7 “motion compressor” which could allow it to work as an mHealth device.

According to InformationWeek, medical practices are increasingly looking to adopt cloud-based EHRs. A Black Book survey showed that most hospitals and physicians are seeking to upgrade to new software.

InformationWeek interviews UPMC CIO Dan Drawbaugh on how the company is working to improve operations at its hospitals by prioritizing healthcare IT. The company looks to find technology that meets the needs of each service line.